Highball
Which renderer to use
Highball can run each game through three different Direct3D translation layers. This is what the database knows for this title — empty rows are open questions, not failures.
| Renderer | Verdict | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| DXVKDirect3D 9-11 over Vulkan | Untested | no report yet — send one |
| DXMTDirect3D 11 over Metal | Untested | no report yet — send one |
| D3DMetalApple's Game Porting Toolkit | Untested | no report yet — send one |
No dated Highball run yet. When one lands it records the renderer, the engine build and the macOS version it was seen on — which is what stops a verdict quietly rotting. Send one.
Notes
Telltale's 2012 game, the Steam one called The Walking Dead. Does not launch for the one report so far: right after starting, the game asks for a single block of about 2 GB, which no 32-bit program can get under Wine, and crashes when it doesn't get it. The graphics mode makes no difference, and Steam's DirectX setup did not help. Nothing was measured here beyond the memory probe described in the issue.
Known issues
WalkingDead101.exe crashes into Wine's debugger right after starting, in every graphics mode (an M1, r28)
What helps none yet. The reporter plays the console versions meanwhile
Why the game asks for one 2,056 MB block of memory at start (Wine logs 'out of memory for allocation, size 80810000'), gets nothing and writes through the null pointer. A 32-bit process cannot get a block that size: measured on the M4 with a probe in Wine 10 r28 and Wine 11 r25, the largest free block is 1,971 MB (2 GB address space) or 2,048 MB (4 GB, split at 0x7FFE0000 as on Windows). So the game sizes the block from something that reads differently under Wine, likely the memory status it is given (2,047 or 4,095 MB). Steam's DirectX setup did not change it
Provenance
Reported by udance4ever (highball-db#701, 2026-10-26), Apple M1, macOS 27.0.1, Highball 0.10.22, engine x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r28, in a Steam library on an external drive, Steam's DirectX setup skipped: WalkingDead101.exe crashes into Wine's debugger right after it starts, on D3DMetal, DXMT and DXVK alike (a write to address 0 at 0x004DE934 inside the game's own code, before any graphics starts). Not verified by the maintainer.
Before installing anything, it is worth checking whether the game already ships a native Mac build.
Common questions
Does The Walking Dead work on Mac?
The Walking Dead has no native Mac build, but it is reported to run on Apple Silicon through Highball, a free open-source compatibility layer. This comes from community reports rather than a Highball test run, so treat it as a reasonable expectation rather than a guarantee.
Contribute a result
This page is generated from an open database. If you have run The Walking Dead on Apple Silicon, working or not, a report takes a minute and fills in the empty rows above. Send a report, or read how the data is put together.